LIECHTENSTEIN Law and Practice Contributed by: Simon Ott, Andreas Vogel, Husmira Halis and Felix Bayer, Schurti Partners Attorneys at Law Ltd
meanours and infringements in relation to violations of the Due Diligence Act. Against this background, there can be circumstances in which both the Pros - ecution Service and the administrative authority are authorised to investigate the same facts of a case. 2.2 Initiating an Investigation White-collar investigations are initiated as soon as the authorities become aware of a suspicion that an offence could have been committed (which can either be ex officio or by means of a criminal complaint). The competent authorities are then required to inves - tigate and to assess whether an initial suspicion can be established. If in the affirmative, an investigation will be conducted. In recent years, reports of the Liechtenstein Financial Unit (FIU) to the Liechtenstein Prosecution Service have regularly led to white-collar crime investigations. Financial intermediaries (eg, banks, insurance under - takings, investment companies, asset managers, or professional trust service providers) are required to file a report with the FIU if there is any suspicion of money laundering, a predicate offence to money laundering, or terror financing detected. Based on the information and documentation received by the financial interme - diary, the FIU must determine whether there is an ini - tial suspicion of an offence and, if so, file a respective report with the Liechtenstein Prosecution Service. 2.3 Powers of Investigation Investigating authorities generally have a wide range of powers to gather information and documents relat - ed to white-collar crime offences. The most relevant investigative measures in white-collar crime proceed - ings are the following. • Seizure of evidence by means of a court decision ordering an information holder (ie, a person sub - ject to the Due Diligence Act) to produce docu - ments related to the investigated white-collar crime offence to the Princely District Court. • House search and seizure of evidence by means of a court decision ordering the raid of premises and the seizure of white-collar offence-related evidence.
• Freezing assets that purportedly derive from the investigated white-collar crime offence in order to secure these assets for forfeiture. • Examination of suspects and witnesses. Freezing and seizure orders are issued by the Princely District Court upon the respective motion of the Pros - ecution Service. According to established case law, the raid of the premises of an entity under investiga - tion and the seizure of documents require a reasonable probability arising from established facts that the evi - dence sought can be found in the searched premises. Further, the simple (concrete) suspicion that a crime has been committed must be established. Lastly, a house search-and-seizure order is only admissible if it is not disproportionate. Such orders issued by the Princely District Court are subject to an appeal with the Princely Court of Appeal by the suspected perpetrator and the legal or natural person whose premises has been raided and where objects (especially documents) or information stored on data carriers have/has been seized. Further, the directors of the legal entity under investi - gation, as well as those employees who are suspected of having committed the offence or who have already been convicted of it, are questioned as suspects in the proceedings against the legal entity. In this context, the general rules of interrogations apply (eg, the right to avoid self-incrimination). In practice, employees of an entity under investigation are examined as wit - nesses (provided the respective employee is not also subject to prosecution). Over the years, the handling of virtual assets in the course of criminal proceedings has posed new chal - lenges to the law enforcement authorities and led to the introduction of separate provisions to the Liech - tenstein Criminal Procedure Code. In particular, the possibility of freezing virtual assets by way of transfer - ring them to a wallet maintained by the Liechtenstein police was introduced. According to the legislator, these provisions make it possible to effectively curtail the perpetrator’s access to misappropriated virtual assets or virtual assets acquired with misappropriated fiat assets respectively in order to secure them for for - feiture. Further, the law provides for the possibility of
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